


Duplicity

by Rainsaber



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin Verrocchio, BAMF Assassin Leonardo eventually, Betrayal, Break Up, Creepy Cesare Borgia, Eventual Smut, Ezio being BAMF Ezio, First Kiss, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Reluctant Templar Leonardo, Rescue, Secret Assassin Leonardo, Snarky Leonardo, Templar Salai, Two idiot lovebirds, more smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:34:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainsaber/pseuds/Rainsaber
Summary: Leonardo da Vinci breaks romantically and professionally with his student, Salai, for the last time. In his attempt to pick up the pieces of his life afterwards, he becomes forcibly entangled with the Templars, Ezio’s far too generous heart, and a part of his own life he never thought he would have to resurrect. Lying can be a dangerous game, especially to those you love.
Relationships: Ezio Auditore da Firenze/Leonardo da Vinci
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53





	1. The little devil

**Author's Note:**

> I have a fairly decent idea of how long this one will be. I will do my best to keep up with this one, as well as my other big projects I have going right now since yours truly is furloughed. I blame my husband for making me watch plot while he replayed the games. Prepare for an angst-fest, because these two are about to get a wee bit messy. Will update the tags as necessary.

_ 1499, Venice _

“Did he threaten you?”

Leonardo da Vinci wanted to laugh.

_Of course_ Salai threatened him when he fired the boy once and for all.

He’d given the little _cretino_ a job, a roof over his head, food and drink, clothes on his back, more when he asked, more even after he’d stolen from the artist and been found out, and more still when he started making sexual advances on his own _maestro_ when he got older. Leonardo couldn’t even begin to say what had made him finally give in to his former student. Was it loneliness? Was it hope? Selfish blind vanity? Whatever it was made him feel sick to his stomach because Salai used him as a means to an end even with that. Perhaps it was the potential. Because with Salai there had always been great potential. That was and always would be his best quality. The chance for greatness, for someone to properly carry Leonardo’s legacy after he died, for future success had _such_ potential in Salai.

And one day, Leonardo came home early. In a melancholy too. Seeking comfort…

The sight of Salai bending a street boy over a desk in the supply closet would forever be burned into his sight, and in the poor broken thing he still called a heart as well.

Leonardo realized then, as a rare fit of anger took hold of his voice and body, that he would never be enough for the young man. He’d been a fool to think he ever could be. And now, here he was as heartsick as he’d been all those years ago when he’d been publicly refuted by the first man he’d dared to fall in love with. It had been out of safety for them all that they had to lie, but it did not make the rejection and abandonment afterward hurt any less.

_Christo_ , Leonardo thought he’d gotten over all this misery the last time his heart broke like this. He’d vowed back then to never let another get that close to him ever again. And look what happened… he was slumping in a chair like a disinterested rag doll with Ezio pacing the room like a caged lion. Part of him felt a little guilty for getting his friend so riled up. It wasn’t as if he had to tell Ezio anything about his personal life, but the man had a true knack for being a stubborn pain in the ass when necessary.

“Leonardo,” Ezio commanded, yanking his hood back to reveal his fiery features. “Answer me. Did the _bastardo_ threaten you?”

Leonardo sighed, shaking his head where he sat by the fire. “Leave him be, Ezio. Both young and old say things in anger they do not mean.”

That was not enough for the assassin, for he stepped forward to block Leonardo’s line of vision, which had found some inexplicable vague target somewhere along the far wall. Hm. Ezio had dyed his clothes darker recently. “ _What did he say,_ ” Ezio growled, placing both hands on the arms of Leonardo’s chair.

Leonardo sighed and met Ezio’s intent gaze. “It is not important. Please, Ezio, _mi amico_ , do not ask me again.”

Ezio sighed, clearly unhappy and angry, but he dragged a chair over at the opposite side of the fireplace all the same. “You have wine?”

Leonardo waved a hand at him before winding his arms into themselves. “Help yourself.”

Before Leonardo could lose himself to his morose thoughts again, Ezio was by his elbow, offering a full glass of red wine to the artist. 

Leonardo tiredly and with little to no heat glared up at the assassin. “You’re not going to leave me to my misery, are you?”

Ezio gave him a reproachful gaze. “Not a chance.”

Leonardo reluctantly took the glass and stared at the wine, completely disinterested. He watched Ezio pour a glass for himself as he settled into the chair across from him. The assassin raised his glass after a few respectful moments of silence. “To friendship.”

Friendship…

To his own surprise, Leonardo downed the entire glass of wine in one go. He swallowed, but the last little bit caught in his throat and he coughed behind a hastily drawn hand. When he recovered, he found his hands shaking and a kind of hysteria rising up in his chest. This time it wasn’t a cough that came up, but something between a gasp and sob. He covered his mouth again, before anything more humiliating could come out.

Ezio was already kneeling in front of him, gently prying the glass from his hand and placing it somewhere safe, lest he shatter it and injure himself.

It was such a kind and gentle gesture that the artist couldn’t help but fold forward in defeat, whines and more sobs lodging themselves painfully in his chest. He could feel tremors running through his entire body, and tears leaking out of his eyes, no matter how much he wanted them to stop. And what made it worse was Ezio moved just enough to his left to bring Leonardo’s bowed head onto his right shoulder, wrapping one arm around his back and entangling the other hand in his hair.

“ _Mi dispiace_ ,” he gasped.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Leonardo” Ezio said softly in his ear.

Eventually, after an indeterminate amount of time that Leonardo was going to actively try to forget, he pulled away from the assassin and wiped his face dry to collect himself. Still, Ezio stayed kneeling by his side, studying him as Leonardo tried and failed to form a better apology for taking advantage of his friend.

“Salai will not be long for this world if he continues to hurt you this way.”

“Ezio,” Leonardo chastised, after a wet and surprised chuckle. “You cannot murder every person who upsets me or anyone else you love.”

“I have spent the past ten years doing so, and I will continue to do so as long as I have breath in my body.”

Leonardo shook his head. “Your thick skull is a wonder of this world.”

“I have been told.”

They both smiled at each other, Ezio’s smile more vibrant and infectious than Leonardo’s own. Regardless, it still filled a small part of the empty void in him, and for that the artist would be forever grateful. Quicker than he realized, Ezio had refilled Leonardo’s glass and offered it to him again.

“Slower, this time, eh?”

“Eh,” Leonardo articulately replied with a single sip.

“Do you think he will he come back?”

Leonardo sighed. “He usually does… but this time I hope not. I don’t trust myself. God help me, I might even take him back if he asked.”

“You would take back an adulterer, a liar, and a proven thief?”

“Well, I’m sitting here drinking wine with a murderer,” Leonardo sniped, his mind a few seconds behind his tongue with the wine taking effect.

Before he could apologize, Ezio was laughing in good heart and taking a healthy drink. “Tis, true. But I do not make it a habit of murdering friends. You cannot let him back, Leonardo. No matter how many times you may have in the past. If you wish to be free of him, you must be done with it.”

Leonardo sat back, cradling his wine glass against his chest. He didn’t like to be seen so naked and vulnerable in front of another person, but there was not much for it now that he’d been seen for the fragile and selfish thing he was. He only hoped Ezio didn’t think too poorly of him now, because to lose Ezio might very well put Leonardo into the ground with his misery. “I know. _Christo_ , I know, I… Maybe I just enjoy punishing myself.”

“When your heart hurts, it looks for any excuse to not believe the truth.”

“The truth is a terrible thing,” Leonardo groused. “I promised myself this would never happen again and look! I could…! I’m angry, I’m… I deserve to be angry at him for all he did, all he took from me, but…”

Ezio leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “You still love him.”

“Maybe I loved who I thought he was… who he could have been.”

Ezio set his glass aside and looked Leonardo dead in the eye. “Listen to me. You will find someone else. Stop shaking your head. You will. Not tomorrow. Not the next day, but one day you will. And he will love you and cherish you for all that you are.”

Leonardo scoffed. “That’s quite the fairy tale, Ezio.”

“It is the truth. Mark my words, _mi amico_. Because I will ensure it happens.”

Ezio, the assassin matchmaker. The thought was so funny that the artist had a hard time holding his laughter back. “Do you plan on making people fall in love with poisoned darts or sharpened steel?”

Ezio shrugged with a grin. “Whichever works.”

“I suppose there are worse things they could hang you and I for.”

“Sodomy is getting rather low on the list,” the assassin said with…was that a wink?

Leonardo rolled his eyes with a sigh. Once Ezio set his mind to something he would not be dissuaded. And Leonardo knew that Ezio knew what kind of man he was. The artist was not one to drown his sorrows in another person’s body. “I need… time, _mi amico_.”

“You will have it. I know you, Leonardo. But do not think I will leave you here to brood all day and night. You need a distraction. And if it cannot be with pleasure, then it must be work. You will need a new apprentice.”

“I have other students, Ezio.”

“Si, but an apprentice? A proper assistant? How else do you expect to get through all your commissions? Just last week you begged off the _King of France_ because you are so busy!”

“I wish that was an exaggeration,” Leonardo admitted with wide panic-filled eyes too embarrassed to face his friend and instead trained on the flames in the fireplace.

“ _Il mio punto,_ ” he exclaimed with an exaggerated hand wave. “So? You will hire someone?”

“Give me time, Ezio, please! I… It would not be fair to whoever I hire right now because the only person I feel I can trust is myself. And you, but you know this.”

“I do. I just don’t like to watch you suffer needlessly. Can you not give more work to the other students?”

“Perhaps, but… none of them had such a grasp of the unknown like… he did. They all have to be told what to do and how to do it. He… _Salai_ … just knew how it needed to be done, and he did it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was workable.”

“Others can be trained.”

“In time. Perhaps.”

“ _Bene_ ,” Ezio said, taking a generous sip. “If now is not the time for this question, I do not expect an answer. But you said this has happened before. What did you mean by that?”

Leonardo knew this question would come eventually. Ezio had respected his privacy in many things up until this point, and the artist safeguarded countless secrets of Ezio’s as well. But the fact that the assassin remained ignorant of the rumors was a surprise. Leonardo scoffed without meaning to. “There exists one person in all of Italia who has not heard? God has a strange sense of humor…”

“Heard what, Leonardo?”

Leonardo sighed, replying with morose bitterness, “What the hell,” before tossing back the rest of his wine, which was half the glass. He moved to put it down on the floor, but Ezio took it from him with a look of disapproval. “When I was a student,” Leonardo slowly began. “My apprenticeship was under Verrocchio’s tutelage in Florence. I was not much older than you. Twenty-four, actually. Naive about many things, and too curious for my own good. Sometimes I still am. An anonymous denouncement was left in the _tamburo_. It accused me of sodomizing Jacopo Saltarelli, along with Giuseppe Baccino, Bartolomeo di Pasquino, and Leonardo Tornabuoni.”

“That is no small accusation,” Ezio said after a pregnant pause.

“It was not. But, luckily, the charges were dropped. Another accusation, with the same inaccuracies, appeared in the _tamburo_ soon after it, but thankfully it was dismissed as well. Whoever the accuser had been refused to sign his or her name.”

“No doubt the Tornabuoni family did not appreciate the slander. Nor the Medici.”

Leonardo winced. “They did not. Either way, I was grateful, because otherwise… well… I was allowed to keep my apprenticeship. _Maestro_ was angry, of course, but I earned his forgiveness. Eventually it was all forgotten.”

“What of the other men?”

“Giuseppe was the only one who truly mattered to me. His… silence afterward cut the deepest, deeper even than the public rejection he had to put on for all our sakes.”

“I am sorry, _mi amico_.”

“Time dulls the pain. It is against the law, and that will not change in my lifetime.”

Ezio narrowed his eyes. “So that is your excuse to stay unhappy?”

“Why,” Leonardo challenged. “Do you have a better one? I am all ears, Ezio.”

“You misunderstand me.”

“No, you misunderstand me, _mi amico_. My lack of happiness hinges on my career. I have dodged those rumors my whole life. I have only risen to the success I have now because I have denied myself that happiness—if it even is _happiness_. And now, the success of my students hinges on my loneliness. I have learned to live with it. I was weak when Salai came into my life—I see that now. I have every responsibility beyond myself to continue as I have learned to live, and more than just my livelihood now depends on it.”

“So… you _want_ to be alone and miserable.”

Leonardo sat back and bit his tongue, shaking his head and unable to even look Ezio in the eyes for how angry he was. The assassin didn’t understand. He’d perhaps never understand, even when Leonardo attempted to explain it all. “It is not about what I want, Ezio. It never has been and it never will be. I will say no more on it.”

“I do not mean to make you angry, Leonardo. Understand that some of us truly want to see you happy.”

“Perhaps. But this is not the night to talk about it, I am afraid.”

“Then I will take my leave,” The assassin said standing up and finishing his drink. “Will you be alright?”

“I’m forty-seven years old, Ezio. I can take care of myself.”

“Seven years my senior, what a leap. _Va bene._ ” Ezio patted him on the arm. “I will check on you in the morning.”

Leonardo reached for the bottle, but Ezio grabbed it on his way to the door. Leonardo glared at his back because he knew Ezio would feel it. 

“Rest, my friend,” Ezio called, just a little to light-hearted.

Just as Ezio was about to leave, Leonardo called after him. “Ezio, you…”

He trailed off, because something about Ezio stopped whatever words were about to form on his lips. It could have been the man’s hair. It looked clean and light, despite all the hours it spent underneath that hood. It might have been the softness in his face from the light of the fire. For once, Ezio looked caught off guard and at ease. It could have been because he was in the process of pulling his hood up, and stopped.

How long ago had it been that Leonardo himself had fussed with such things?

Whoever Ezio chose, Leonardo envied them.

“ _Si?_ ”

“Thank you,” he said, finally.

Ezio said nothing but nodded his head in reply and disappeared into the night.

A few days and several bottles of wine later, a little boy bumped into Leonardo in the marketplace. He apologized profusely and with such manners for someone his age. He explained that he had been tasked by his own father, who was a dignitary, to deliver a set of papers to the artist Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo put the boy at ease and accepted the papers he’d been expecting. The little boy ran off to report back to his father. It was then that Leonardo spied Ezio lurking in the shadows. The assassin winked at him before disappearing. Leonardo scoffed and returned to his workshop after purchasing some food for dinner. A week later, the same little boy was introduced to Leonardo’s students and quickly became a favorite in his house. Leonardo refused to admit it, but the addition of little Francesco Melzi lifted his spirits, and even allowed him to surface from his heartache enough to put brush to canvas again.


	2. A new patron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of playing fast and loose with some character ages and whatnot, but hopefully the bigger idea will be clear and it won’t be too confusing. Thanks for sticking with me on this one and enjoy the update! Apologies for the delay. I entirely blame Nanowrimo for the 6-7 book series I just started and hope to self-publish or get published someday. Happy Holidays!

Little Francesco Melzi ran across the workshop floor and flung his sketch at Leonardo. Leonardo had been painting, but stepped away to look at the unfinished face staring back at him. He had to hand it to the boy for knowing when to disturb him and when not to. Not all of his students were quite as intuitive. Salai had even gone out of his way on occasion to disturb Leonardo when it was most inopportune to do so, which of course led to more than a few arguments. Leonardo took the sketch and assessed it closer by candlelight. He nodded and patted Franco on the shoulder.

“This is good, Franco,” Leonardo praised, handing some used brushes over to the boy.

“Thank you _maestro,_ ” he said, beaming before rushing over to clean the brushes.

Leonardo smiled as he watched the youth scamper off. Already a few days and as Ezio predicted the presence of a new student was lightening his spirits. The artist stretched, realizing both afternoon and early evening had passed them both by. Knowing Franco, he hadn’t taken time for himself to eat, so Leonardo headed straight for the kitchen to put together a plate of food for them both.

Finalizing the terms of Franco’s apprenticeship had not been difficult, but Leonardo knew a fraction of what it meant for a mother to part from her young son. For Leonardo’s own mother it had been much of the same that he saw in Franco’s mother. Stoic, teary eyes, a serene smile that held no true happiness. He’d been close to Franco’s age when his own mother had to give him a proper goodbye, before his father whisked him away to Maestro Verrocchio’s workshop. If he had known what he’d be in store for when he shook Andrea Verrocchio’s hand for the first time, Leonardo might have gone running right back to his mother.

As they were polishing off their food, a loud thump, of what sounded suspiciously like a body, crashed onto the floorboards above them. In Leonardo’s bedroom. The artist’s heart stopped momentarily out of surprise. And Franco’s fearful eyes certainly didn’t help.

“Get under the far table,” Leonardo whispered to Franco. “Stay there until I come for you—do you understand, my boy? Behind the tablecloth!”

Franco nodded and scurried under it, disappearing from view.

Quick on his feet, Leonardo grabbed a table knife and headed up the stairs, avoiding all the weak spots that creaked. His bedroom door was partly closed, but Leonardo’s eyes picked up the light from the moon and the shadows of movement via the window.

A pained groan sounded from the bedroom as Leonardo drew closer to the door. “ _Figlio di puttana,_ ” the intruder cursed.

Leonardo paused. He knew that voice… “Ezio?” The artist straightened up from a crouch and pushed the door back, spotting some familiar white robes in a heap on the floor next to his bed.

“ _Buona sera,_ ” he groaned, looking up with a pained expression.

“You could not have used the door,” Leonardo asked in much relieved exasperation, as he fished in the dark for a candle and match.

“I do not think I could have climbed down with any grace.”

“With the moon rising, I wonder why you bothered with your pride.”

Ezio chuckled. “If you by chance had seen me, the humiliation alone would have killed me.”

Candle lit, Leonardo bent down to help Ezio up. “Vanity is not a good look—” Ezio gasped when Leonardo touched him. Leonardo felt the blood drain from his face as he drew his hand away and found quite a bit of blood seeping from Ezio’s side. And to the artist’s growing horror, the source of the wound was still lodged in the assassin’s body. “ _Gesu Cristo_ , Ezio,” Leonardo cursed.

Ezio tried to get an arm underneath himself to get up, but Leonardo forced him back down. “Don’t move—Franco! Franco, come up—” Franco appeared in the doorway a second later, clearly having not been downstairs as instructed. “I thought I told you to stay under the table until I came for you!”

“You were talking, _maestro_ ,” Franco defended. “It sounded like a friend. So I came to check.”

Leonardo huffed in frustration, but made a mental note to speak with the boy later. “Be quick. I need fresh water and my sewing kit.”

Franco nodded and disappeared, bounding down the stairs to retrieve the requested items.

Imbedded in Ezio’s side was a nasty looking… what could he have called it? A steel arrow? It looked like an arrow _and_ some kind of hook that tore Ezio’s right side open. Just a little more to the left and it might have torn something more important than—“Who did this,” Leonardo demanded.

Ezio huffed and rolled his eyes. “The Borgia and their Templars. Who else?”

Leonardo might have not been as gentle as he could have been when he removed the arrow hook. “And whose idea was this—this—whatever it is you had to do to risk life and limb _this time_?”

Ezio kept an angry groan behind his lips before replying. “It needed to be done.”

“Ezio, do you see this? It ripped you open. You could have been killed!”

“Of course, I could have,” Ezio snapped. “I am an assassin. This is my life, Leonardo.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to—” Leonardo cut himself off, unable to help the volume of his voice as it raised toward the end. He took a deep breath and regrouped, choosing his words more carefully. “You need to be more careful. Your life is not expendable for some greater cause. Not to me.”

Ezio smirked in satisfaction and Leonardo wanted nothing more than to wipe the man’s face clean of that look. “Being careful is only half of the job, Leonardo. The other half is taking risks. Sometimes they are worth the sacrifice.”

That was why Leonardo da Vinci was digging frantically for the false bottom of the chest at the foot of his bed at midnight the next night.

Ezio had only stayed long enough for Leonardo to clean, stitch, and bind the gaping hole in his side. He’d kept the strange arrow hook to study later, but as time passed Leonardo was more and more reluctant to even look at the terrible thing. At dawn, the morning after Ezio’s surprise appearance, Leonardo had brought up some breakfast for the assassin only to find him gone and the bed kindly made up. The artist had scoffed at the empty room and tossed the plate onto his nearby desk with derision. He’d gotten no sleep that night, checking on Ezio, worrying about Ezio, trying to come up with a better argument to make Ezio understand the brotherhood needn’t be his whole life. And perhaps the assassin had enough foresight to avoid the lecture he knew was coming to him.

Either way the absence grated. Ezio’s father had meant for his son to follow in his footsteps and Leonardo knew he had no right to try and convince his son otherwise. But to keep Ezio safe, Leonardo found it harder and harder to be no more than a bystander.

The false bottom of the chest came up with ease, as always. And beneath the surface, the familiar black robes stared back at him. Leonardo sighed, even as pangs of old grief tugged at his heart. The last time he’d worn these robes he had sworn he’d never wear them again. In fact, he’d gotten within a breath of burning them before remembering who had gifted them to him in the first place.

That person, because of Leonardo’s failures, had hanged in the Piazza that terrible day…

**… … … … … … …**

_He was running behind. And the guards on these rooftops were truly trying his patience. He needed to get to the Piazza_ before _the execution and he would have been able to get there much quicker if he could simply knock these **bastardos** off the rooftops instead of knocking them out. But his conscience refused to let him do it, even today of all days. _

_He dropped down on top of another one who went down like a sack of flour. Leonardo quickly checked the young guard’s fluttering pulse, and when he was satisfied the man would live, he climbed and moved on, racing, rushing, slipping on the rooftop tiles more than once. He needed to be sure, to see if Giovanni and his sons would be acquitted. He’d heard one rumor they would and another that surely they wouldn’t. Either way, Leonardo would not leave Giovanni’s life, nor the lives of his sons, to chance._

_When he got to the Piazza, his stomach dropped at the large crowd present. A large crowd for a public execution never ended well. Mostly because the person in charge of the execution never had the balls to call it off with so many people screaming for death and spectacle. This did not bode well, and most certainly not for a family of bankers._

_Leonardo kept to the shadows and scanned the crowd for Ezio, not finding him yet. He did, however, catch sight of the wagon that was bringing the condemned to the scaffold. He needed to get into a better position, which of course meant taking out more guards._

_Carefully._

_Which annoyingly took time._

_Precious time._

_He caught sight of Ezio down in the Piazza out of the corner of his eye, just as a guard was falling unconscious in Leonardo’s arms. He eased the guard down to the rooftop and crawled along to get the scaffold in his center line of vision, lying flat on the hot tiles. He’d curse Giovanni later for gifting him black robes, of all colors to choose from. It was hot and sweaty waiting and watching with his hood covering his head and the mask covering the bottom half of his face. At this rate his fingers would slip on the trigger of the matchlock pistol he brought with him. He wasn’t even sure why he brought the damned thing other than it seemed foolish to leave it home. Giovanni had outright refused to return it when Leonardo discovered it along with the robes._

“If I were to deprive a fellow assassin of a weapon,” Giovanni said to him, with a smile. “What kind of friend would I be?”

A younger Leonardo glared at him.

“Now don’t look at me like that, Leonardo. You need a weapon, regardless of whether you choose to use it.”

“A dagger would be less conspicuous.”

“A dagger is not an appropriate weapon specific to your skills—”

A couple of boys ran into the courtyard, shouting at each other and fighting over a toy. Giovanni sighed, voice gravelly with annoyance. He poked his head out and shouted, “Ezio! Federico! I swear to all that is holy if you wake Petrucchio _again_ you will not see the outside of this Palazzo until you come of age— **Mi capisci**?!”

Giovanni slammed the door shut and shook his head. “Should you one day be blessed with a family, Leonardo, you may kiss your career as an artist goodbye! You do not get a moment’s rest. I, of course, would be more than happy to provide a distraction so that we might finally work on your swordsmanship—”

“You convinced me to not renounce the Brotherhood because of my bloodless methods, Giovanni,” Leonardo exclaimed, thrusting the gun towards his friend. “I cannot accept this. You must take it back! …please?”

Giovanni eyed him with amusement. “Mm, I think not.”

Leonardo huffed and threw his hands in the air. “I don’t even have my own workshop yet! What if someone were to find these things? I wouldn’t know what to say!”

“You should have stayed with _Maestro_ Verrocchio.”

“I cannot stay with him in perpetuity. No apprentice can. And it certainly wouldn’t have helped with…” Leonardo sat, tired and suddenly feeling the insecurities rise up again. “Other things.”

Giovanni’s eyes glinted with displeasure. “No, it most certainly would not have. But the person behind those accusations has been dealt with.”

“I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for that—”

Giovanni held up a silencing hand. “There is no need and there never will be. You are a dear friend. And I tire of seeing those who do nothing but love brought low for their private matters.”

“Would if _Maestro_ Verrocchio had the same _generous_ disposition,” Leonardo complained, crossing his arms.

“I cannot rail at the Almighty for not blessing me with you as an apprentice. Likely you’d try my patience as much as you did with your maestro. You have a different gift. A beautiful gift. And the world will learn to appreciate it one day. You just have to have faith in yourself. And besides, you know you could have asked me if you needed money.”

Leonardo looked up at Giovanni, confused. “Money for what?”

Giovanni leaned across his desk with a smirk. “Your own workshop.”

Leonardo’s eyes went wide. “No—no—no! Absolutely not!”

_And because Giovanni was Giovanni, he’d gone and done it anyway. One of the things Leonardo had prided himself on was paying the man back for all his investment in only a few short years. It wasn’t without Leonardo having to sneak into his Palazzo and drop the bag of money on his desk as he slept, but Giovanni had been asking for it by refusing to take back the investment by just about every other means. Personally, Leonardo thought it was the assassin’s goal all along, to keep Leonardo’s skills fresh._

_Giovanni had done so much for Leonardo over the years._

_And now, today, it was Leonardo’s turn to save Giovanni._

_If he listened closely, he could make out what was being said. Charges. False accusations. This was not being framed as an acquittal. Ezio was on to it. And Uberto’s betrayal confirmed it. Why? Why?! For whose benefit did these three souls have to—?_

_Leonardo saw the executioner reach for the lever. He had a split-second decision to make. Save three lives at the sacrifice of one? Or condemn three lives to spare one? As much as he hated that he had to choose, might have to kill to do it, Leonardo still struck the match and lit the flash pan. He just hoped he’d be forgiven for taking a life. His finger had barely closed around the trigger of his gun, when a guard slammed into him from the side. His finger squeezed the trigger and an almighty roar from the crowd rang out below._

_Leonardo struggled with the beefy hand squeezing at his throat. The guard was certainly larger than him and bore his weight down on that hand, making the artist feel like his throat might collapse under the brute force. He kicked out and up, but kept missing, giving him no choice but to grab for the pistol (almost too far out of reach) and ram the butt of it into the man’s temple. The guard made an awful noise and fell over to the side, lifeless._

_Rolling over to the other side, Leonardo coughed as he sucked in much needed air into his burning chest. His throat ached something horrible, but he pulled himself to the edge of the roof to see… swinging bodies._

_He’d been too late._

_Giovanni and his sons were dead._

_All the fight left his body. And instead it filled with such intense despair and defeat Leonardo thought the pain in his chest might actually kill him. But through his tears, and the pain from his hand when he’d slammed it down in anger, he saw the tail end of Ezio’s failed attempt to kill Uberto, and then his flight from the Piazza._

_Perhaps from the spirit of Giovanni, or perhaps from a greater divine power—he would never know—but like an arrow from heaven, he’d been struck with a rare clarity of thought._

_“Ezio,” he gasped._

_This help Leonardo could provide._

_He scrambled to his feet and took off. In a grief-filled haze, he’d given in to being less careful. He knocked guard after guard off the rooftops instead of knocking them out. He even disarmed one of a knife and tossed it at the leg of another who was aiming a crossbow at Ezio. When Leonardo could no longer see Ezio and a majority of the guard separated off to chase him instead, Leonardo did what he did best. He disappeared, shaking them off with ease._

_When he slipped through his bedroom window and secured it, he ripped his hood back and his mask down, fell to his knees, and gave in to the urge to cry and sob and wail._

_The pain from the aches and scrapes he’d acquired mattered little next to the pain of his grief._

_Salai had raced up the staircase and found him, tried to comfort him to no avail, and in the end just held him until Leonardo stopped, hours later._

**… … … … … … …**

He hadn’t been able to speak of it then. But the only thing he’d wanted at the end of that day was to rip the gifted robes from his body and burn them. The red and white trimmings of the robes were discolored in a few places. Dried specks of blood. Proof of how careless he’d been. All his failures.

It was Salai, however, who had been the one to bar Leonardo from doing just that. Later that night when he came to his senses, Leonardo gathered the robes and hugged them to his chest, shedding more tears for the benefactor, friend, and true mentor he’d lost. Giovanni’s gift had come from someone who believed in him and didn’t want to see him cast aside for difference of regard for human life. Giovanni saw his value, and told him as much, convincing Leonardo not to walk away, but instead to bide his time. And through the years, Giovanni had been a consistent presence in his life, even as over time Leonardo had further distanced himself from the Brotherhood. If he could live through that terrible day… live to see and help Giovanni’s last surviving son, then Leonardo would consider that his penance for the worst failure of his life.

The clothes still fit, thankfully. And his equipment was serviceable, though he’d like to take time later to fine tune everything. He looked out his window at the cloudless night, blanketed with beautiful stars and a bright full moon. God Almighty, was he actually going to do this? Franco was asleep, the front door was locked, the candles downstairs and in his bedroom had been extinguished. There was nothing else to do, but climb out the window.

Leonardo sighed and pulled his mask up, then his hood.

The window made the softest squeak opening and closing. There was a faint chill in the air which made jumping from rooftop to rooftop somewhat pleasant, even in a city not quite so familiar as Florence. That was likely a blessing though. Leonardo doubted he’d be able to do this in the same city where he’d last worn all of this.

At first, he hadn’t really the faintest idea of where he was going. But once he got his bearings, and found himself near the Basilica di San Marco. Strangely, the sight made him wish he _was_ in Florence, standing on the rooftops in front of the Piazza della Signoria. A cool Venetian breeze enveloped him. A heavenly comfort maybe? No. If anything it should be the cool touch of ghosts that only now resided in his nightmares.

Had he been the only one of Giovanni’s cohort left back then? Did the Assassins not know of Giovanni’s arrest, his imprisonment, his planned execution? Did they know and not care, or not dare intervene because of Rodrigo Borgia? Leonardo had been too overcome with grief at the time to let his thinking lash out that way. Then he’d gotten backlogged with his commissions and he had been too busy helping Ezio—because back then it was Ezio that truly mattered. But now… Leonardo really wanted answers to every one of those questions.

And he was going to get them.

Not just for himself, but for Giovanni. He deserved that much, even in death. Leonardo closed his eyes and tipped his head to the heavens. “Forgive me, Giovanni,” he said, softly.

“Who are you?”

Leonardo startled, poorly, and somewhat embarrassingly. He’d reached for his wheellock pistol strapped to the back of his belt, but Ezio Auditore already had his own pistol (the one Leonardo had made for him) aimed at his chest. Slowly, very slowly, Leonardo drew both empty hands out to either side and got to his feet.

Ezio watched him like a hawk, and Leonardo would be a liar if he didn’t admit being under that gaze was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. “I do not believe we have met…?”

“We… have not,” Leonardo answered, trying to think of a way out of this and hoping—praying—that the mask would disguise his voice well enough.

“Well then,” Ezio asked, stepping forward. “Answer my question.”

“I do not think,” Leonardo argued, stepping back. “That would be in either of our best interests, _Messer_ Auditore.”

“And why is that? You know _my_ name.”

“To be fair, most assassins know who you are.”

“Perhaps you are a Templar in disguise?”

Leonardo scoffed, and stopped his retreat. “Please. Do not insult me. Those fools barely know how to prime their matchlocks properly.”

Ezio’s gaze narrowed. “Except they don’t use matchlocks these days.”

Bad guess. “They don’t?”

“No. They have new toys. Courtesy of Cesare Borgia.”

Leonardo blinked from his daze of staring at Ezio’s becoming goatee. “Ah. That sounds like a problem.”

“What is your name,” Ezio asked, advancing on Leonardo quicker, pushing him to the rooftop edge. “Tell me now before I lose my patience.”

Leonardo risked a glance at the canal below them and did the math in his head. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “ _La Gazza_ ,” he admitted, immediately regretting it, but using the surprise to his advantage by ducking, running along the roof’s edge, and jumping off.

His hook and line held secure as he swung through the air, releasing at the designed angle and retracting with just a little less speed than he was used to. He landed neatly on the deserted streets below and took off, knowing Ezio wasn’t too far behind him. He hissed at the strain in his shoulders but pushed his older body to pull old muscle memory to the surface.

Twice he’d had to climb back to the rooftops when he felt Ezio closing in. Only once more did he dare use his hook and line, mostly for fear that the line might snap without some proper maintenance. He’d tried to lose Ezio somewhere south of his workshop, but realized it was a futile effort, so instead he used an old smoke bomb to throw the assassin’s attention as he slipped down the alley that led right to the little garden behind his workshop. He didn’t stay to see whether the old thing still had the desired effect. There would be time enough to test those things in private later.

As he closed the bedroom window behind him he looked out the window to see if Ezio had seen him or followed. He pulled his hood back and his mask down, breathing a sigh of relief and sagging against the wall. And because God hated him, a moment later his heart was up in his throat.

“Leonardo,” Ezio called from down below in— ** _IN_** —his workshop!

Leonardo cursed softly and ripped off his assassin robes, stuffing them quickly in the chest. He patted down his shirt and pants as he headed for the door, but before he could open his bedroom door, Ezio had burst into the room, making Leonardo backtrack a few steps on bare feet. “Ezio, what—?”

“Are you alright?”

“Wh—yes, I’m fine. Why are you—?”

“I tracked an unknown assassin near to here. You have not heard anything suspicious?”

“Suspicious,” Leonardo echoed, trying to keep up. “No, not at all, I was…”

Ezio’s gaze narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong,” Leonardo shot back.

“You sound like you’ve been running.”

Leonardo took a moment and sighed. “Bad dreams,” he lied, running a shaky hand through his hair. “That I would rather not discuss at the moment.”

Ezio looked properly chastised. “I am sorry for disturbing your sleep. I wanted to be sure you were safe.”

Leonardo sat down heavily on the edge of his bed. “Check the house. I have not heard anything, but I know you will not know peace until you do.”

Ezio gave him a nod and disappeared.

While Leonardo had a brief moment to himself, he blew out a soft breath of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He tossed water on his face from the basin and wiped off. That was too close for comfort. Perhaps instead of the direct approach he could wheedle some information out of him now. He would have to see.

“He called himself _La Gazza_ ,” the assassin spat as he re-entered the bedroom, pacing.

“The magpie,” Leonardo considered. “An odd name for an assassin, no?”

“ _Si._ I thought perhaps he might be one of _La Volpe’s_ men, but did not get a chance to ask him.”

“And why is that?”

Ezio sighed and crossed his arms, self-conscious. “I may have… been a little too direct.”

“So you scared him?”

Ezio nodded, shaking his head at himself.

“Well,” Leonardo continued, hiding his smile. “Perhaps he was simply not ready reveal who he was.”

“But why appear now? After everything that has happened? Why tonight?”

Leonardo shrugged. “Perhaps he wasn’t able to before now?”

“That only brings up more questions.”

“Well, it would be hard for _me_ to supply you with answers.”

“Forgive me, _mi amico_ ,” Ezio apologized. “It has been a frustrating evening.”

“Aside from discovering a new assassin, you mean?”

Apparently it had been, because for the next ten minutes Ezio described to him in detail the kind of shipments the brotherhood had been tracking. Cesare Borgia had been amassing a great deal of war equipment. Weapons, cannons, trebuchets, men from France, and even Spanish horses. At the end of it all Leonardo made a noise of interest, filing all the important information away for later. He offered to let Ezio stay in his bed for the night, because he was still too wound up to think about sleeping, but the assassin declined.

“I want to see if _La Gazza_ left any evidence behind,” Ezio said. “And if he did, I _will_ find it.”

“I am certain you will,” Leonardo replied, smiling tightly.

But Ezio hesitated by the door. “Unless you’d prefer I stay? Ah… in case he comes back?”

“I appreciate your concern,” the artist said, standing a little taller. “But I know how to handle myself.”

Ezio looked him up and down with a look of disbelief. “Truly? And what was it you came upstairs with last night? A dull table knife?”

Leonardo rolled his eyes, and pushed the man outside. “ _Goodnight_ , Ezio.”

The man threw him a smirk before disappearing into the night and Leonardo quickly locked the door and went to his workshop for a distraction. Because if he dwelled on that smirk for too long, he’d be useless for the rest of the night. And he did not want to do laundry in the morning. 


End file.
